Gift Buttons
The ever popular "Buy me a beer" buttons suggest $3 a pint, or $7.50 for a pitcher. What people who donate like about this option is that the amount is small, and they prefer the feeling of buying you something over just handing you money. It's exactly the same result in both instances, but gives a feeling of gifting.
It doesn't have to beer either. There are many options and graphics and text for cups of coffee, martinis, gift certificates, etc. Use your search engine and type in what you would most like to receive to find the appropriate payment button. Make sure you do a bit of research. Not all buttons work on all blogs. The "Buy me a beer" button, for instance, only works on Wordpress.
Your Best Criteria for Receiving Donations
If you have a blog that is all fluff and no stuff, you may have a hard time raising funds. There are some attributes that increase your chances of realizing some cash through your donation buttons.
Value.
If your blog offers something helpful to your readers, they are more likely to throw a little money in the pot. It's a mutual back scratching thing - you give to them, they give to you. If you blog site typically offers free downloads and such, that only increases that feeling of giving back for them.
Little or no other commercial activity on the site. If you plaster ads all over your blog, you lessen your chances of people clicking your donation button. They think you're already making money off of them, and that your need is not as great as it would appear without the ads.
Tons of readers. It just makes sense that the larger your readership, the more money you'll make. Only a percentage will give, so the donations will rise in accordance to the higher number of visitors.
A Couple of Suggestions
There are some things that you can do to encourage people to give. If you engage in proactive fundraising, that is make a plea in your blog posting for readers to help you out financially, try enticing them and make sure you don't bug them.
Offer incentives. You could do it on a ballot basis, giving all benefactors a chance at winning one of x number of prizes. If need be, approach local or online business and ask them to donate. It's free publicity for them, and a premium for you to use to attract more cash gifts. This just may be give that little extra push to those readers who are sitting on the fence deciding whether or not to click the button.
Keep your fund-raising requests to a minimum. If you repeatedly ask for donations, you'll pester people. They not only will stop giving, but they'll start to avoid you and that means your readership will fall, as well.
Knowing how to monetize your blog with donations is not only good for you, but for the people doing the donating. It makes people feel good to help and give if they can. Do yourself and them this favour. Everyone gets rewarded.